Date of this Version

7-2023

Document Type

DNP Project

Abstract

Background: Food allergies are a growing health concern in the United States. Ige-mediated food allergy is an anxiety provoking diagnosis due to the possibility of anaphylactic reactions, epinephrine use and life limitations. Providers who do not use a validated, condition-specific food allergy anxiety assessment tool in their practice have difficulty identifying patients at risk for moderate-severe food allergy anxiety. The literature has shown that providers also lack the knowledge of when to refer patients exhibiting food allergy anxiety to mental health services. This quality improvement project focused on improving providers' identification and education of food allergy anxiety after implementing a food allergy anxiety protocol that consisted of an educational presentation and 4-week use of the Survey of Food Allergy Anxiety tool in their practice.

Methods: A literature search was conducted, and articles were accessed from CINAHL Plus with Full Text, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE (Web of Science). After reviewing those articles, a quasi-experimental research experiment was conducted using pre-implementation and post-implementation surveys to determine baseline food allergy anxiety provider confidence and knowledge and the impact of a food allergy anxiety protocol. A two-tailed paired samples t-test was used to analyze the data.

Results: The mean of the pre-total scores were significantly lower than the mean of the post-total scores showing a positive impact of the educational presentation and SOFFA tool.

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